By Chance Alone
by Ithalir
Summary: Years before he left for Moscow, when Tintin was no one but an orphan without a name or a home, a meeting in the snow one night both changed his old life and allowed him to begin a new one. A one-shot.


_Today - January 10th - is the anniversary of the first pages of_ Tintin au Pays des Soviets _appearing in Le Petit Vingtième in 1929._

* * *

A traveler, on an empty street in a town in Belgium where a snowstorm raged. White clouds twisted in the howling winds, defeating the valiant efforts of the streetlights to pierce the obscurity. A night with no stars, merely thick, dark clouds that hung low over the village, suggesting menacingly that they were far from the end of their powers. A traveler, alone in a night that no other soul seemed to dare face, shirking the struggle in favor of a quiet fire. Little could be seen, nothing could be heard but the wind. The cold bit deep through several layers of muffling clothing but the traveler felt no desire to return to the warmth of the hotel just yet, preferring to lose himself in the elements, to be swallowed and obscured and dominated by them, to bear sole witness to their power. And yet in this he was interrupted by the sight of a boy huddled in a small niche in a wall facing a sort of alley. An overlarge coat, worn and faded, enveloped him entirely and nearly erased his resemblance to a human being; only unruly blonde hair identified him as a child and not a discarded pile of fabric. A fine layer of snow lay over him. What could be seen of his face behind his turned-up collar was drowned in sleep, oddly peaceful despite his wind-bitten features and the tremors that shook his entire body. The traveler halted and stared through the eddying flakes, then stepped towards the boy. The spot was well-chosen, as protected as any place outside in such weather could be. It was for the most part out of the wind, at least, and as the traveler approached the niche the shrieking in his ears quieted. When he was only a few paces away, the child, as if warned by some sixth sense, jolted awake. Grey eyes, sharp despite the veil of weariness that still laid upon them, blinked in surprise and suspicion as the boy drew defensively further back into his shelter.

"Qui êtes-vous?" he asked in a voice that was almost a command.

"A friend," the traveler answered in the same language. He, too, had stepped back involuntarily at the boy's unexpected movement.

A wry expression passed over the boy's face. "Oh, yes?" he asked. "I don't know you, monsieur."

"I'm a traveler; this is my first time here."

The boy raised an eyebrow, seemingly wishing to argue his point further, but the traveler changed the subject before he could comment.

"Why are you alone? Where's your family?" he asked.

"I have none," was the calm reply.

The boy seemed to have collected himself after his unexpected awakening, and now regarded the traveler with an analytical gaze that seemed to belong one much older than a child who couldn't be more than eleven or twelve.

"Who are you?"

"No one." It was said not with sorrow or self-loathing but a strange sort of pride.

"Don't you have a name?"

"No."

"Where do you live?"

"Nowhere, as you can see."

"When did you last eat?"

Shock twisted briefly across the boy's face as his composure slackened. He lowered his eyes, and suddenly shook violently in a powerful fit of coughing. The traveler, much alarmed, knelt quickly in the snow and grasped his shoulder to steady him. Once the fit passed, the boy took several deep breaths of the frigid air and looked directly into the traveler's eyes, now on a level with his own.

"I'm not sure," he said, barely audible over the wind.

"Come with me," the traveler said firmly. His mind had long since been made up. Perhaps it had been so from the moment he first saw the boy.

"Where?" the child asked, suspicion returning to his voice.

"I'm staying in the hotel down the road," he began, pointing. "I can at least give you a meal and a place to sleep out of this storm. You cannot stay out here all night. If you do, you may not see the morning."

Immediately, he wondered why he'd said that. It seemed rather morbid for one so young, and he did not want to seem to be intimidating the child into going with him. And yet it was the truth; he knew that. Perhaps he had been addressing the old stare and not the youthful features that held it. The boy, too, seemed to understand the verity of the man's words. He considered for a while. The traveler waited for him to speak.

"All right," he said at last.

He stood in a somewhat ungraceful movement, being rather stiff with cold and lack of motion. The traveler rose with him and stood by as the boy straightened his coat and dusted snow from his shoulders. That done, he glanced up at the traveler, who ushered the boy before him into the white street. The snow seemed to be falling thicker than ever, if that was even possible; it swiftly cloaked the two figures walking side by side, almost hiding them from each other's sight. They struggled on in silence, though it likely would have been futile to speak; any words would have been torn away and swept into oblivion by the fierce gusts the moment they left the speaker's mouth. Thankfully, it was not long before the lighted windows of the hotel appeared, throwing yellow light into the obscuring clouds. The traveler opened the door and warmth flooded out, foolishly eager to challenge the powerful chill but extinguished beyond a few feet. The boy crossed the threshold like a first-time burglar entering a house, tentative and extremely conscious of being in a place where he did not belong. Something of his self-assurance seemed to dissolve in the warmly-lit room where a fire crackled in a carefree manner and a few people sat making muted conversation at scattered tables. But the traveler came behind him, quickly shutting the door and propelling him into the room. The boy stood uncomfortably a few steps inside, his eyes flicking around as if he expected someone to rise and order him back out on the street. But no one so much as glanced towards the door. The traveler, seeing his discomfort, smiled reassuringly and placed a hand on his back, gently steering him along towards the hotel's desk. A woman sitting behind it smiled at the traveler as he approached.

"Good evening, monsieur, and welcome back," she said pleasantly. "Really, what an idea to go out on a walk in a storm like this! To each their own, I suppose."

The traveler smiled back. "I enjoyed it," he said simply. "But now, I'd like dinner, please; for myself and for him."

The woman started slightly, having not noticed the boy until he was pointed out. One eyebrow crept up, seemingly almost against her will.

"Of course," she said easily, after a brief pause. "Take a seat anywhere, and it'll be out soon."

"Thank you, madame," the traveler said, steering the boy once again, but this time to a table in the corner, near the fire. He kept an eye on the boy as they walked, noticed his tense expression slide into a sort of resignation. When they sat, the child would not meet his eyes, but stared awkwardly at his hands, clasped and resting on the table. Little by little, however, his composure truly returned and he seemed to find some measure of ease. The traveler took out a pipe, filled and lit it. He leaned back comfortably. The fire crackled and danced, throwing flickering shadows on the walls and floor. The two sat in silence for some minutes until the boy looked up, hesitated, then spoke.

"I… Monsieur?"

The traveler glanced up expectantly from his reverie.

"Don't think that I'm not grateful, but… why are you helping me?"

The traveler considered this for a few moments. "Well, why shouldn't I help you?"

The boy, surprised, hesitated again for a long moment before answering. "No one cares about me. It's none of their business."

The traveler frowned. "It needs to be someone's business. Nobody should have been left out there, least of all a child. Someone should care, and I wasn't going to just leave you there. What sort of a human could I call myself if I simply walked by another person needing help on a night like this, simply because they didn't affect my day-to-day existence? Where would the world be if everyone only attended to 'their' business, how many injustices left to fester while every face turned away…"

He trailed off and puffed at his pipe thoughtfully for a few moments, embarrassed. He hadn't meant to get carried away, and felt he had rather overstated his gesture. The bleakness in the child's words had disturbed him.

"Does there always have to be a reason, a motive, for helping someone?" he asked more quietly.

"No," the child said to himself.

Silence fell again, but now it was the traveler who felt awkward. He fell to studying the boy, who was watching snowflakes drift thickly against the stark black behind the windows. He was very slight in build and an unhealthy pale. Slender hands remained clasped on the table, bony wrists were mostly hidden by his sleeves. His face was round, his soft features given angularity by hunger but still evoking a cherubic innocence. The whole picture was one of gentle fragility, and yet there was something about his eyes, his look, the way he carried himself that spoke to an underlying strength.

 _Who are you, child?_ he wondered. It suddenly occurred to him that he had not given the boy his name either. Perhaps it had just seemed odd to do so when faced with the boy's defiant lack. But how could he really not have a name? Curiosity awoke and he fidgeted a bit before speaking.

"Would you tell me," he began, "what happened to your name?"

The boy only regarded him carefully for a while. The traveler readied an apology, but the child spoke before he got the chance to use it.

"My name?" he said. "I left it behind."

"Why?"

The boy paused, considering how best to explain. "It wasn't who I am."

"How can that be? You give meaning to your name, not the other way around."

"No, I don't consider it really mine, I didn't want it anymore." He fell silent, troubled by memory.

"You can't live your whole life as nobody," the traveler said gently.

"I won't." He smiled, a private sort of smile.

"I'll give myself a name. When I'm able to leave here and make that name mean something. A new identity, my own identity. It'll be _my_ name." The boy proudly held the traveler's eyes for a few moments, then suddenly dropped his head and began to study the pattern of the wood on the weathered table.

The traveler realized that the child had probably never revealed his idea to anyone else, and he was touched by the confidence placed in him. He leaned back, intrigued. He hadn't told the child his name. He was now sincerely wondering if it mattered. At first he had considered the boy's declaration of namelessness as a sort of joke or a simple lack of trust, but clearly it was a much deeper matter.

"What name will you take?" he asked with sincere interest.

"I don't know," was the reply.

The traveler raised his eyebrows in surprise.

"Not yet," the boy added with a quick smile, "but I'll figure it out."

Dinner arrived, temporarily placing conversation on hold. The boy ate with a certain furtiveness, as if considering his rights to food limited.

Afterwards, the traveler rose. "I'll see about the rooms," he said, and returned to the desk.

"My key, please," he said to the woman, "and I'd like to have the room adjoining as well for tonight."

"For the petit?" she inquired, nodding towards the child, whose back was to them.

"Yes," the traveler said.

"It's very kind, what you're doing here, helping him," she said, turning to scan the neat rows of keys on hooks. "In this part of town everyone sort of knows him, but put him in a room with a few other children and I doubt most people could pick him out." She found the keys, laid them on the desk, and glanced back at the boy as the traveler rummaged in his pockets for his wallet.

"He seems to get along all right, though," she continued reflectively. "He's a survivor, but not your usual street kid. Certainly politer than most his age, for one thing. It's funny, though, no one seems to have any idea where he came from."

"Really?" asked the traveler, looking up from the notes he was counting out.

"Yes… It's a fairly big town but you'd think someone around here would have known what happened to his parents. Of course, it doesn't help that he's never given his name to anyone."

"What do you call him?"

"Le petit, usually, or le gamin, or just toi if he's being addressed."

The traveler nodded and paid. "It's interesting," he said softly. He looked as if he was going to say more, but merely took the keys instead. He thanked the woman, who wished him good night.

He returned to the table, considering everything he'd heard. Some earlier guest had left a newspaper nearby, and the boy was absorbedly pursuing it. He made to put it away as the traveler sat down, but the latter told him that it was all right and glanced over the headlines himself.

He remarked on one of them, the boy answered, and unexpectedly a lively conversation began, a conversation that flowed with an unexpected ease. The traveler was surprised at how well the boy knew the events of the day and how ably he discussed them; the latter, when questioned, smiled and told him that he read the newspapers whenever he was able. Their talk weaved and danced from subject to subject as each of them gained a hitherto absent animation, excited to discover a common love for the far-off and the unknown. The traveler told some stories from his many years of wandering; the boy listened with eager wonder, asking questions from the astute to the simple. A sort of wistful envy often appeared in his eyes.

But eventually their discussion wound down, with comfortable silences appearing and lengthening. The boy yawned. It had gotten late. Guests had come and gone, with rather more goings than comings, and the room was now almost empty. The fire was burning low, but the room was still warm. Weariness he had temporarily forgotten returned slowly but inexorably to the child. His shoulders slumped, and his head gradually dropped until he was gazing at the table. A hand slid into his field of vision, deposited a key, and then drew back.

He looked up to see the traveler smiling gently at him. "Go on and sleep," he said, "it's gotten late."

The boy nodded and rose, picking up the keys and his coat. "Thank you, monsieur," he said, trying to put all the gratitude he felt into the three words.

"You're welcome," was the reply.

The boy left. The traveler remained, staring absently at the embers in the fireplace and fiddling with his long-extinguished pipe. His thoughts wandered freely over the events of the evening; so small, so insignificant, but they stood out in his mind. He felt a sort of kinship with the child. After all, neither of them truly had any place to call home, as he'd spent so many years chasing he no longer knew what; he might as well have dropped his own name, as it had become no more than an identifier on tickets and at hotels, devoid of meaning to the countless eyes it passed under. But wanderlust's call was still strong, and some of his boyish love for the world still burned. Some part of him knew that he wouldn't be happy living any other way than in motion. He was gnawed always by an insatiable restlessness. And in that he felt somehow that they were alike as well. He'd thought he'd seen it, the same love, the same restlessness, but perhaps he had only been projecting onto this child without identity. But no, he corrected himself; the child did have an identity, he'd seen it, even in so short a time. And even a boy in the street – especially _this_ boy - had such hopes, such possibilities. He suddenly felt old and very tired. He sighed and remembered the train leaving in the morning, ready to whisk him off yet again. And it was not a whim that sent him away this time. The boy would have to go on alone. Abandoned again; how many times had it happened before? _I hope he'll remember me_ , he thought desperately. _I hope he finds his name, and his future. I hope I will have meant something to him, with my truly inadequate gesture…_

He shook his heavy head to pull himself from his gloomy musings and quitted the silent room. Such worries would have to wait until the morning. Only sleep called him now.

The morning found them both at the same table as the night before. They spoke lightly over breakfast, but the traveler was troubled. He saw the boy glance once or twice at the suitcase sitting by his chair and wondered guiltily how he was going to tell him the news. He delayed as long as he could, but he was starting to be in danger of missing his train.

Eventually, he cleared his throat. "I'm leaving this morning," he said. "I must go on. My train is at ten."

The boy nodded, lowering his eyes. He couldn't say he hadn't expected it. "May I see you off?" he asked.

"But of course; I'd be glad of the company." He pushed back his chair, picked up his suitcase, and led the way out, saying goodbye to the woman at the desk as he held the door open for the boy.

It had stopped snowing during the night. The sun shone harsh and clear, and the whiteness blinded them. The wind picked up and they did not speak, each burrowed as deep within their coats as possible. There was no one save them on the streets; no other footsteps marred the fresh snow.

A few minutes later, the two of them were making their way through the last few drifts towards the station. The boy stared in some wonder at the ornate building that had always figured in his dreams of better things as the place where a new life began. Now he was finally to walk its halls, and he could not help but feel excited as it loomed nearer. The traveler navigated with ease to the platform; the train had already arrived. He put down his suitcase and turned to face the child. "Well, this is it, I think."

"Where are you going?" the boy asked.

"Where life takes me, I suppose," he responded. "But this train will take me to Paris. And you, what will you do now?"

"I'm going to go to Brussels soon. I've been saving, and I finally have nearly enough for a train ticket."

"And what will you do there?"

"Start over. Become someone. I'll find work, a place to stay. And one day, when I can, I want to see the world." The traveler smiled, but then his expression faltered. "You need a home first," he muttered to himself.

"I want to give you one last thing," he said more decisively, reaching into his pocket and taking out his wallet, which he rifled through before holding out some bills to the child. The latter appeared completely stunned by this last act of kindness.

"I- I can't possibly…" he stammered.

The traveler only smiled anew. "Mon petit," he said, "In doing this I lose some money, and you gain your life. I think it's a reasonable exchange."

The boy still hesitated.

"Take it. And use it well. It's the least I can do." He pushed it gently towards the child, who slowly took the notes and tucked them carefully into a pocket.

"Far from the least," he said quietly.

He looked up again. "I will never forget what you've done for me," he said seriously.

"I'm just glad I was able to help, and that I got the chance to meet you," the traveler responded. "Good luck, child, and farewell. Maybe we'll meet again, and maybe not. Who knows?"

"Who knows; but I'll still say au revoir."

"Au revoir it is, then. Perhaps fate will take me to Brussels one of these days." The child smiled at the thought.

"I have very few preparations to make; I could leave even today," he said half to himself.

The traveler held the boy's eyes for a moment. "Will you be all right?" he asked, suddenly feeling extremely conscious of how young his friend was.

"Yes," the child responded firmly. And the traveler found that he believed him. Almost against logic, he believed him.

"Good luck," he said again.

The boy nodded a bit. "Thank you. Bon voyage."

The traveler shook his hand; then, picking up his suitcase, he climbed the steps and disappeared into the train. It departed a few minutes later in a hiss of steam and clatter of wheels, throwing up a spray of snow. The boy waved farewell, then stood and watched the train until it disappeared over the horizon. Then he turned and went.

It was a bright summer day some years later when the traveler found himself unexpectedly in Belgium again. And it was there, through the crowds in the streets, that he saw the boy again – or he thought he did, at least. It was difficult to be sure. He moved closer, causing the man at the newspaper stand to look at him hopefully.

"A paper, monsieur?" he asked.

"Oh- La Dépêche, please," said the traveler.

"Looks like he's done it again," the man said offhandedly, glancing down at the front page as he handed him the newspaper. "It seems like this kid's always in the papers."

"Who is he?" he asked. The man looked surprised.

"I've been abroad for a while," the traveler said with an apologetic smile.

"Well, he's this boy reporter from Brussels. He solves mysteries and things like that. He found an international opium ring pretty recently – didn't you hear about that?"

The traveler shook his head.

"Oh." The man looked into the distance, searching his memory for other headlines, but the traveler simply paid and thanked him.

He walked off with the newspaper under his arm and sat down on a bench to study it. It didn't take long for his last doubts to vanish. It was definitely him, though the photo showed him a bit older, a bit taller, smiling with a quiet, easy confidence. A small dog was sitting proudly at his feet. His hair seemed to have given up individual attempts at sticking up and the front had united in a single effort against the laws of gravity. The rest, defeated by the new alliance, had been cut short. But he had the same eyes, that same maturity beyond his years that had so struck him on that night in the snow.

 _He made it_ , he thought. _He found his name, too. Still calls himself nothing._ But now he thought he better understood what the small boy had told him that evening near the fire; nothing, indeed, but this was a beginning, not a void. A blank page where anything could be written, was already being written, on his terms alone. _His_ name. And the reporter it belonged to, well, he recognized the child he'd met on the street, but he also recognized the fruition of that child's hopes. A fierce rush of pride swept through the traveler.

 _He did it_ , he thought happily, _he really did it, he succeeded, and far beyond my wildest imagining..._

He stood up and looked again at the photo, feeling lighter somehow than he had in a long time.

"He's done it," he whispered, and walked away, taking the paper with him.


End file.
